


We Cannot Cling To the Old Dreams, Anymore

by sariagray



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is visited by a vision while on the Valiant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Cannot Cling To the Old Dreams, Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by analineblue. Title is from "Still Ill" by The Smiths and there is a quote in here from Shakespeare's Macbeth.

“You’re dead.”

The pinging and clanking of the pipes cloaked Jack’s quiet, empty voice. He dropped his head and stared at his feet in an outright refusal to visually acknowledge the hallucination. The guard hadn’t been gone five minutes, and his mind had already begun to act up. Again.

“Twice, apparently,” the apparition responded absently with a quickly suppressed flinch. "More than most."

Jack hated his subconscious for making that voice sound so painfully accurate, so low and soft and sweet.

It was hot in the boiler room and the rivulets of sweat that ran down his face carried a few months’ worth of grime. He could taste the salt, crude oil, grease, and dirt where it collected on his upper lip. It tasted like stale death, sour and metallic. Sweat dripped from his eyebrows, too, and blurred his vision, burning his eyes with a prickly sting. His clothing clung to him, sticky and uncomfortable, and his arms ached with the strain of keeping them above his head.

The body that had been dragged out of here two days ago looked little like the body his mind had conjured up before him now.

After four months of running and hiding, starving and rescuing, the form of Ianto Jones had been grotesquely thin, brittle, with sallow skin stretched taut over protruding bones. His eyes, though, had been clear and defiant until the last fatal cut had been made across his throat.

As blood bubbled from between Ianto’s chapped lips, he gurgled something that sounded like “for you” or “love you” and Jack found himself begging for Ianto to just let go and die already and hold on just a little bit longer and “please, _please_ just stay with me.” With his last breath, Ianto had fallen forward, head resting heavily against Jack’s stomach. Jack’s shirt was still stained with the blood that had gushed forth.

“A shame you didn’t bring a change of clothes with you,” the Master had taunted, an hysterical edge of glee sharpening his tone. “You should’ve been more prepared, really. But it does make a pretty pattern, don’t you agree? ‘Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!’”

Gwen and Owen had already been killed weeks ago, swiftly, by the Toclafane during a relocation mission. A family of five and two teenagers had died with them, but Toshiko and a young couple had managed to escape. They were still on the run. Of her continued survival, Jack had little hope.

“Twice?” Jack asked warily.

The apparition, Ianto, smiled.

“This one,” he gestured around the boiler room, “doesn’t stick, I suppose.”

Removing his jacket with care, Ianto dipped a sleeve in a stagnant pool of water and wiped Jack’s face. Odd - his visions had never touched him before. It was the closest thing to comfort Jack had experienced since his capture and it made him reel dizzily. Or perhaps that was just the familiar, clean scent that cut through the now-unnoticeable stench of unwashed human, mildew, and petrol.

“I failed you,” Jack whispered brokenly as Ianto stepped back again, dropping his jacket to the ground.

“Never. You’ve never failed me.”

This Ianto was filled out properly, his skin glowing and ruddy. His eyes, though, were just as sharp and bright as they had been days ago. Jack’s mind was being kind to him, for once, supplying what he wanted to see in place of the demons it usually conjured.

Ianto stepped close again, nuzzled his cheek against Jack’s, and the electric jolt of skin-to-skin contact pulled a whimper from Jack’s parched throat. Ianto’s hands stretched up to massage Jack’s arms, their bodies pressed firmly together. A rush of pins-and-needles flooded the appendages and Jack groaned.

Glancing at him, Ianto smiled. It was then that Jack noticed the scar like a slash across Ianto’s right cheekbone. It looked to be in the early stages of healing, but it still managed to stand out brazenly. 

“How’d you get that?”

Self-consciously, Ianto backed away and rubbed at it with his fingertips. “Doesn’t matter.”

Normally, Jack would press for information, but this was his own subconscious and he had had enough of pressing himself for answers to the inexplicable. Ianto smiled again, and Jack couldn’t remember a time when Ianto’s smile had been so dazzling and yet so sad.

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispered. It didn’t matter, of course, but it felt like a start. “For leaving, for dragging you all into this, for not saving you.”

Before he had witnessed the man’s death, Jack had entertained plenty of fantasies: the team coming in to rescue him, all calm rage and hard eyes; Jack escaping and saving them all in a fine display of heroics; the Doctor winning in the end and Jack returning home to Cardiff to wrap his arms around Ianto and never, ever let go. _Home_.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated and Ianto shook his head.

“Don’t,” Ianto breathed and brought his hand up to Jack’s cheek. “You have nothing to apologize for. Ever. Remember that. You need to remember that.”

Jack leaned into the caress and closed his eyes.

“I’m glad,” Ianto began, his voice breaking. “I’m glad I got to see you one more time.”

Jack’s eyes snapped open. “What do you mean?”

“It was…hectic, the last time I saw you. We barely had a moment alone. And when we finally did, it – it wasn’t enough. It was too late. But I have to leave now. I…I don’t even know why I’m here. Just – just remember, this all ends.”

Ianto looked so perplexed and devastated for a moment that Jack felt his throat constrict. God, he hated his subconscious sometimes. It was a right bastard.

“What should I do? Tell me how to fix this. _Please_.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow and his eyes suddenly sparkled with laughter, his face smoothed of all concern. “When you come back, ask me on a date. I’ll like that.”

With that, the vision faded, leaving Jack with a familiar and terrible sense of emptiness. He glanced around the room hopefully, but he was alone. He dropped his head again in something much like agony and caught sight of the dark puddle of wool-blend at his feet. His mind was a cruel, cruel thing.

The guard returned and glanced curiously at the jacket lying forlorn on the ground before kicking it out of the way. Jack’s heart leapt suddenly, only to plummet once more when the Master strode into the room, dragging a bound-and-gagged, emaciated Toshiko Sato.

“Brought you another present, Freak!” the Master announced as he clapped his hands together. “Let’s see if this one lasts longer!”

And the torture started over again.  



End file.
